December 13, 2025
Not everything that breaks me
Is a fine millstone-grinding,
Obliterating and permanent.
If the pieces left are big enough
They can be swept like glass from the floor,
Carefully matched,
And glued with time and love.
But when that which is fragile breaks, they say,
You mend with molten gold
For scars are beautiful things.
But I fear there will come a time
When the softness of the seams
Will be my undoing,
And a blow will come
That cannot be healed.
And does the teacup, so mended, tire?
Does it feel the weight of gold
Like liquid lead,
The boiling over never far
From seeping through the cracks?
Gilded wounds still ache,
And when you have traced the track marks,
Popped my pain, like candies, by the handful,
Forced your way into my mind
And had your way,
Still you call it damage -
A marred dancer bound bare to the pole
Beside her smooth-skinned sisters.